Brunetti gave this the thought it deserved and said, 'Yes, I think that's best.'
Ignoring the gun, Vianello said, 'The Colonel called back.'
'And?'
'And he's not saying.' 'Which means?'
'It probably means he'd say if they'd told him but they won't tell him.'
'Why do you say that?'
Vianello considered how best to begin, finally saying, 'He was a colonel, so he's used to being obeyed by almost everybody. I think what happened is that they refused to tell him why
Targhetta left, but he's ashamed to admit that, so he says that he's not allowed to reveal the information.' He paused, then added, 'It's his way of saving face, makes it sound like it's his decision.' 'You sure?'
'No,' the sergeant answered, 'but it's the explanation that makes most sense.' There was another long pause and he added, 'Besides, he owes me a number of favours. He'd do it if he could.'
Brunetti considered this for some time then, realizing that Vianello must have been thinking about it for even longer, asked, 'What do you think?'
'I'd guess they caught Targhetta at something but couldn't prove it or didn't want to risk the consequences of arresting him or charging him. So they just quietly let him go.'
'And put that in his file?'
'Uh huh,' Vianello agreed, turning his attention to the pistol. Quickly, with expert fingers, he began to pick up the scattered parts and slip them into place. Within seconds, the pistol was reassembled, returned to cold lethality.
Setting it aside, Vianello said, 'I wish she were here.'
'Who?'
'Signorina Elettra,' Vianello answered. For some reason, it pleased Brunetti that he did not speak of her familiarly.
'Yes, that would be useful, wouldn't it?' Stymied, suddenly aware of how practically dependent upon her he had become in recent years, Brunetti asked, 'Is there anyone else?'
'I've been thinking about that since he called,' Vianello said. "There's only one person I can think of who might be able to do it.'
'Who?'
'You're not going to like it, sir,' the sergeant said.
To Brunetti, that could mean only one thing; that is, one person. 'I told you I'd prefer not to have anything to do with Galardi,' Brunetti said. Stefano Galardi, the owner and president of a software company, had gone to school with Vianello, but he had long since left behind him all memory of having grown up in Castello in a house with no heat and no hot water and had soared off into the empyrean reaches of cyber-wealth. He had scaled the social and monetary ladder and was accepted, indeed welcomed, at every table in the city, except perhaps at the table of Guido Brunetti, where he had, six years before, made very obvious and very drunken advances to Paola until told to leave by her very angry and very sober husband.
Because Galardi was persuaded that Vianello had, almost twenty years ago, saved him from drowning after a particularly riotous Redentore party, he had served, before the advent of Signorina Elettra, as a means to obtain certain kinds of electronic information. Not the least of Brunetti's pleasures in Signorina Elettra's prowess was the fact that it freed him of any obligation to Galardi.
Neither of them said anything for a long time, until Brunetti said, 'All right. Call him.' He left the room, not wanting to be present when Vianello did.
His curiosity was satisfied two hours later, when Vianello came in and, unasked, took the seat opposite his superior. 'It took him this long to find the right way in,' he said.
'And?'
'My guess was right. They caught him tampering with evidence in a case and threw him out.'
'What evidence? And what case?'
Vianello began with the first question. "The only thing he could give me was the translation of the code.' He saw Brunetti's confusion and said, 'Remember that list of numbers and letters at the bottom of the report?'
'Yes.'
'He found out what that means.' Vianello went ahead without forcing Brunetti to ask him. 'They use it, he told me, in any case where a member of the Finanza either overlooks or hides evidence or in some way attempts to affect the outcome of an investigation.'
'By doing what?' Brunetti asked.
'The same things we do,' answered a shameless Vianello. 'Look the other way when we see our grocer not giving a ricevuta fiscale. Not remember seeing the start of any fight between a police officer and a civilian. Things like that.'
Ignoring Vianello's second example, Brunetti asked, 'In his case, what did he do? Specifically.'
'He couldn't find out. It's not in the file.' Vianello allowed Brunetti a moment to digest the significance of this and then added, 'But the case was Spadini's. The name's not there, but the code number for one of the cases Targhetta was working on then is the same as the one listed for Spadini.'
Brunetti considered this. Life had taught him to be profoundly suspicious of coincidence, and it had similarly taught him to view any seemingly random conjunction of events or persons as coincidence and thus be suspicious of that, as well. 'Pucetti?' Brunetti asked.
Vianello shook his head. 'I asked him, sir, but he knows nothing at all about Targhetta, just saw him a few times in the bar.'
'With Elettra?'
'He didn't say, sir.' Brunetti didn't notice how evasive Vianello's answer was.
Brunetti considered various possibilities, including going out to Pellestrina himself. After a time he asked Vianello, 'Do you think Bonsuan's friend would tell him anything if he called?'
'Only way to know is to ask Bonsuan,' Vianello said with a smile. 'He's off duty today. You could call him at home.'
This was quickly done, and Bonsuan agreed to speak to his friend. He called back ten minutes later to say his friend wasn't home and wouldn't be back until that evening.
That left Brunetti and Vianello nothing to do but stew and worry. The sergeant, preferring to worry in his own office, went downstairs.
Brunetti thought of the favours he owed and was owed in return as a pack of playing cards grown greasy and torn with much use. You tell me this, and I'll tell you that; you give me this, and I'll pay you back with that. You write a letter of recommendation for my cousin, and I'll see that your application for a mooring for your boat is put on the pile for consideration this week. Sitting at his desk, staring off into space, he mentally pulled out the deck and began to rifle through the cards. He found one, set it aside, and went on. He shuffled through some more, considered selecting another one, but put it back and continued through till the end. Then he went back to the original card and contemplated it, trying to remember when he had last touched it. He hadn't, but Paola had, devoting a few days to coaching the man's daughter before her final literature exams at the university. The girl had passed, with honours, certainly more than enough justification for Brunetti to play the card.
Her father, Aurelio Costantini, had been quietly retired from the Guardia di Finanza a decade ago after being acquitted of charges of association with the Mafia. The charges were true, but the proofs were inadequate, and so the General had quietly been put out to pasture on full pension, there to reap the benefit of his many years of dutiful - and double - service.
Brunetti called him at home and explained the situation. In a manner graceful yet direct, he added that it had nothing to do with the Mafia. The General, mindful perhaps that his daughter had applied to Ca' Foscari for a teaching position, could not have been more eager to help and said he'd call Brunetti before lunch.
A man of his word, the General called back well before noon, saying that he was on his way to meet a friend who still worked for the Finanza, and if Brunetti would meet him for a drink in about an hour, he'd give him a copy of Targhetta's entire internal dossier.
Brunetti dialled his home number and, relieved to be able to speak to the answering machine, left a message saying he wouldn't be home for lunch but would return at the normal time that evening. The General was a courtly, white-haired man with the upright carriage of a cavalry officer and the elided R so common to the upper classes and those who aspired to them. He sipped at a prosecco while Brunetti, who had seen the size of the folder the General laid on the counter in front of them, quickly ate two sandwiches by way of lunch. They discussed, as people in the city had for the last three months, the weather, both expressing intense hope for rain; nothing else would dean the Augean stables that the narrowest calli had become.